Merciless Magic, Magical Mercy
by JunoMagic
Summary: Hermione and Severus must come to terms with the past and face the consequences of their actions. A bittersweet tale of recovery and mercy, presented in a rising and a falling arc of constrained writing, ranging from drabble to mega-drabble and back.
1. Kissing the Man

**Disclaimer: **This is a work of fan fiction, written because the author has an abiding love for the works of Joanne K. Rowling. Any characters, settings, places from the Harry Potter books and movies used in this work are the property of Joanne K. Rowling, and Warner Brothers. Original characters belong to the author of the said work. The author will not receive any money or other remuneration for presenting the work on this archive site. The work is the intellectual property of the author, is available solely for the private enjoyment of readers at FanFictionNet, and may not be copied or redistributed by any means without the explicit written consent of the author.

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**Author's Notes**

**Prompt:** The following story was written for the SS/HG Exchange 2008/2009, for the prompt "_La Belle Dame Sans Merci_ — Fic inspired by Keats' poem and/or any of the pre-Raphaelite art (Dicksee, Waterhouse, Cowper, & etc.)".

**Warnings: ** EWE, partly AU during DH.

**Rating: ** R/Mature for strong but non-explicit sexual content in Act 2.

**Summary: ** After the war, Hermione and Severus must come to terms with the past and face the consequences of their actions. A bittersweet tale of recovery and mercy, presented in a rising and a falling arc of constrained writing, ranging from drabble to mega-drabble and back.

**Thank you:** Many thanks to my beta-readers and alpha-readers: aranel_took, juniperus, machshefa; to my legal advisor: arwensommer; to my Brit-pickers: lifeasanamazon and tree_and_leaf; and to fellow fanfic authors who graciously granted me permission to refer to some very special ideas used in their various stories:lariopefic and miamadwyn.

**References:** All quotes from, as well as all direct and indirect literary references and allusions to, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by Keats, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by Alain Chartier, as well as to 'The Tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table', 'The Hospital of Love' by Achilles Caulier, 'Outlander' by Diana Gabaldon, 'La Belle Dame Ou A Mercy' (possibly) by Oton de Grandson, 'A Pair of Blue Eyes' by Thomas Hardy, 'Ulysses' by James Joyce, 'Nabokov's Dozen' by Vladimir Nabokov, 'Kubla Khan' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and last but not least, Joanne K. Rowling are entirely intentional.

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****oooOooo**

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**Act 1:**

**"La Belle Sorcière Sans Merci"**

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**oooOooo**

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****oooOooo**

**Kissing the Man **

An ugly, middle-aged man lies sleeping in a hospital bed. Stark contrasts mark him: black hair, white skin, eyes bruised; harsh features framed by stiff white sheets. But a hastily knit blanket — a dozen mistakes ripple through the rows — covers his shoulders. Bottle-green with silver waves.

It does nothing for his complexion.

The door opens. A curly-haired young woman enters the room, followed closely by a bodyguard of two. She walks to the man, watches him for a while, pensive. Then she bends down and sweetly kisses his lips.

He does not wake. And she spins around and hurries away.

**oooOooo**

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_**A/N:**__ An allusion to an anecdote attributed to Anne of Brittany (Colin Bingham, The Affairs of Women) or Marguerite of Scotland (Joan E. McRae, Alain Chartier: The Quarrel of the Belle Dame Sans Mercy)._


	2. Knight at Arms

**Knight-At-Arms **

'Right,' announces the red-haired girl, brandishing her toy-sword. 'I'm the knight. You're the ... _dam_ ... dame in distress. I will rescue you. Tuney, you must roar. Louder! You're a dragon!'

The other girl grimaces, but attempts a more fearsome growl.

The skinny boy in the frilly smock-shirt, once a part of his late grandfather's dressrobes, thinks that Petunia's still squeaking.

'Oh, you worm!' Lily shouts and pokes her sister with the sword. 'Sev, don't worry! I'm coming! I'm going to —'

She stumbles over the dragon's make-shift blanket-tail, landing on hands and knees. Severus hesitates. Will she get up and go on with the play? When he sees her lower lip tremble, he's at her side at once. 'Lily? Everything all right?'

Petunia rolls her eyes.

Later they sit on the carousel, talking quests and destinies. Lily sports band-aids on each knee.

'I'm going to have lots of adventures,' she says, as if there's no doubt about that. 'And you can accompany me, Sev. Or ...' She makes a face. 'Rescue me. In a pinch.'

He throws out his chest and declaims (they've been reading King Arthur):_ 'One or the other of these I will achieve, or bleed the best blood of my body.'_

**oooOooo**

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_**A/N:**_ _Quote from "Tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table", Vol. 4 of 10, III, "How Martimor Came to the Mill and There was Stayed in a Delay"._


	3. Kiss of Life

**Kiss of Life **

_'It'll be all right,_' _Hermione says wildly. 'Let's — look, you go back to the castle, if he's gone to the Forest we'll need to think of a new plan __—_' She glances at Snape's body. 'I'll — I'll catch up — I just — I need to make sure we didn't miss anything. Any — any clue that could help us.'

She shoves her friends back into the tunnel. The shock over what just happened, along with the years of practice obeying Hermione, propel them forward.

Hermione doesn't wait to see them gone.

On her knees, at his side, cold blood seeps through her jeans. Pure panic washes over her. So much blood. What can she do? Merlin, what can she _possibly_ do? But suddenly she recalls her father's voice, his calm and reasonable baritone: 'Every second counts. Broken ribs can heal. Even the effects of a stroke can be treated. But only when the patient is alive to receive that treatment.'

Is he still breathing? Is his heart still beating?

His blood at least is still warm. And there! A pulse. Faltering, faint. The barest wisp of a breath.

She fumbles in her bag. There! The antivenin _he_ gave to her. Didn't he take any himself? No matter. She pours it into his mouth. But he doesn't swallow. Oh God, what now? She reaches for his throat. Massages it, the way she's seen it once on TV. _So much blood. _She has to staunch the bleeding. Murtlap Essence. Blood-Replenishing Potion. Ohnoohnoohno, that only makes him bleed harder. She rips off her vest, presses it to the wound.

_'Duro. Duro. Anapneo, anapneo,'_ she chants._ 'Rennervate.'_

But it's not enough.

His breath fades. His heartbeat fails.

'No.'

She disregards blood streaked black with venom, silvery threads of spilt memories, and presses her lips to his.

**oooOooo**

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_**A/N:**_ _First line quoted/paraphrased from Joanne K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter Thirty-Three, The Prince's Tale._


	4. Hospital of Death

**Hospital of Death **

Harry was tired to death. He couldn't recall when he'd last slept. The Auror at his side was grey with fatigue, too. Still he'd managed to get them to St Mungo's without Splinching.

'Are you sure this is necessary, Harry?' Kingsley asked. 'You're exhausted.'

'Oh, really?' Exhaustion did nothing for Harry's manners. 'Look, Kingsley. She's my best friend. And_ he_ saved all our arses.'

He'd intended to march up to the Welcome Witch, but he stumbled over the low step, and only just caught himself, hanging onto the edge of the desk. 'Hi,' he gasped. 'I'm Harry Potter. I'm here to see Hermione Granger and Severus Snape.'

The witch's pink lips formed an astounded 'o'. But before she could say anything, a grey-haired Healer in lime green robes with teal borders and piping hurried towards them. 'I am Professor Spleen. Mr Potter, Auror Shacklebolt. I'm sorry I wasn't here but —' About to say more, he caught himself and fell silent.

'Who died?' asked Harry. Fifty already dead at Hogwarts. Thirty-eight life-threatening injuries transferred to St Mungo's. Twenty-four others crowding up the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts.

The professor sighed. 'Lavender Brown. I'm very sorry. I was told that she was in your year.'

Harry just nodded.

'But you are here to see two other patients,' the professor stated.

'Yes, please. I need to know ...'

The professor nodded. 'Follow me, please. They are in the Dai Llewellyn Ward.'

'But Hermione wasn't bitten by Nagini.'

The Healer led them into an office smelling of parchment and herbs. 'She came into contact with the venom all the same. You see, she used Muggle methods to keep Professor Snape breathing until —'

'Yes, yes,' Harry interrupted. 'She did mouth-to-mouth. But what has that to do with anything?'

'Everything,' the Healer said. 'Along with Professor Snape's blood and several stray memories, she swallowed Nagini's venom. The venom burnt her lips, her mouth, her throat, her oesophagus, and her stomach. She tried to take some antivenin when she realised what was happening. However ...' Professor Spleen trailed off. He shook his head.

Harry swallowed. 'And Snape?'

Professor Spleen cleared his throat. 'We keep them asleep for the time being — magical sleep for better pain management. If you want to, you may see them now. But only for a few minutes.'

'And ... and ...' Harry swallowed again. 'Will they live?'

The Healer would not reply.

**oooOooo**

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_**A/N:** __The chapter title is a textual allusion to 'Hospital of Love', a rebuttal of 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by Alain Chartier._


	5. Sweet Moans

**Sweet Moans **

Hermione isn't sure if she's dead or alive, and that's a very uncomfortable feeling. For a moment she considers that she might be a ghoSt But she feels too ... heavy. When she looks down at herself, her body is not translucent. But she is dressed in school robes now. The shabby, blood-drenched jeans and the sweater with the torn collar — she remembers fingers scrabbling, frantic, tearing at the vest — are gone.

When she looks up, she suddenly finds herself in front of the Great Hall.

Maybe she's dreaming? Her head does feel stuffy. Everything seems vague, even her thoughts — they meander in mazy motions through her mind. The flagstones beneath her feet don't feel as hard as they should. A dream, then. _Good. _That beats being dead or un-dead, and also improves on approximately 80% of her waking hours over the last year.

She peers around the corner — and gapes.

Hermione can't imagine that _she'd_ ever dream of a ball. Just thinking of the Yuletide Ball makes her mouth go dry.

But she remembers _his_ eyes, so bleak when he thinks no one is looking. Her heart beats faster as she recalls how he caught her watching him, how his eyes glittered — with anger? Dancing with Victor, of course. Her first kiss outside on the terrace. Snowflakes sparkling in Victor's dark hair ...

... and of course that silly argument with Ron.

No. She wouldn't dream of a ball. But there's no doubt about it: the Great Hall is all decked out for one. A dance floor. Walls transfigured into mirrors. Chandeliers gleaming golden-bright. Professor Flitwick directing the school's orchestra. And the drums at the back promise a real band later on.

She turns, considering ways of escape, and almost collides with _him._

In this dream, he is seventeen, she guesses. Skin sallow, eyes black, black hair slicked back, expression fierce. He clutches a Disillusioned flower. Her dream-eye sees through the Charm.

It is a white lily, streaked with vermilion.

He hesitates — glances nervously around — then hurries away, hastening past the staff room and several unused classrooms. Hermione follows. At the very end of the long corridor he ducks into a door in the corner.

Someone is already inside, and Hermione is so stunned that she is too slow. She ends up staring at a locked door. Inside, she hears the muted laughter of a girl.

'Oh, Sev! Isn't this exciting!'

Severus' voice sounds tense, however. 'Lily, love, we shouldn't be doing this. It's dangerous! Can you imagine what will happen if someone finds us? If my cover is blown?'

'That's all part of the adventure! You'd have to pretend you tried to rape me, or something.'

'No! No!' he exclaims. 'I could never ...'

'Hush, silly! I know you couldn't. But you _can_ make love to me tonight, can you?'

The silence must mean a long, long kiss, because at last they both gasp and Lily laughs once more. _'Oh yesss, Severusss ..._ how sweet you moan ...'

**oooOooo**

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_**A/N:** _

_"they meander in mazy motions through her mind" – Textual allusion to the poem 'Kubla Khan' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge._

_"It is a white lily, streaked with vermilion" – Textual allusion to Keats LBDSM._

_"how sweet you moan" –Textual allusion to Keats' LBDSM._


	6. You Are Mine

**You're Mine, You're Mine, You'll Always Be Mine**

He knows it's a dream. If he were dead, he wouldn't be dressed in his grandfather's frilly dressrobes, and there wouldn't be a wooden toy-sword in his hand.

_How disappointing._

He's standing at the shores of the lake. The rushes and grasses bow withered, brown and brittle to the wind. He shivers. And turns his back on Hogwarts.

As he walks, his thoughts drift, vague as Highland mists, away from the dreary landscape that surrounds him, to a distant summer's day. To his best, and worst, memory ...

Lily. The corners of his mouth quirk — a bitter smile. _Of course._ Who else. It was always Lily ...

He'd finally given in and agreed to her hare-brained scheme. As if he'd ever had a chance to withstand her gentle — and sometimes not so gentle — persuasions. They had agreed to let it _begin_ in plain view. He snorts. As if they hadn't enjoyed teasing and tormenting him before. As part of a plan, they were only spurred on to greater heights of cruel creativity.

... and he was even more powerless than before. The cause, however worthy, cold comfort.

But of course there was Lily.

In his dream, he snorts again, a painful, choked sound, strangely muffled to his ears. He realises that the hills around him echo with silence. No bird sings. Not even the wind sighs.

He doesn't turn around to see how far he's come.

They hadn't told him what they'd planned, insisting it be easier for him, that his reaction would be more natural.

He remembers the glorious sunshine, the scent of flowers in that summer meadow. The sizzling sensations swirling inside of him — pride at the certain knowledge of having passed the OWL paper with flying colours, trepidation at whatever _they_ had planned for him, and ...

He couldn't even begin to describe his feelings over Lily's promise ...

Instead, he concentrates on how he glimpsed her, down at the lake with her friends, keeping a calculated distance. At that time, it was a well-known, and — among Gryffindors as well as Slytherins — much resented fact that they are friends.

Her long, red hair, blazing in the sunlight. Her slender, naked feet, lightly splashing sparkling water. The wild look in her eyes when their gazes lock for a split second.

How that one moment made his heart leap —

The sign.

_That bloody snitch._

He refuses to remember the humiliation — his helpless, futile rage. However, he cannot forget the rat's eyes, glittering with glee. Was Pettigrew hatching his very own megalomaniac machinations even then?

He straightens his shoulders. Keeps walking, eyes trained on the summit of that cold hill before him. The path he treads is steep and narrow. But he feels as if he's walking in the air. If he's breathless now, it's not due to the precipitous incline.

They'd met below the willow, silvered in the moonlight. Reckless Lily led him off. To the fringes of the Forbidden ForeSt To a copse, her sheltered bower.

She brought a blanket, and sweets from Honeydukes. She wore his perfume and nothing but her skin under the school robes.

He was her first, but even through those tears of that initial soreness, her eyes were wild with desire. How strange her voice sounded, sultry, as she moaned and whispered: 'You're mine, you're mine, you'll always be mine.'

Suddenly he's back on the hillside of his dream. Alone. Mist is creeping up the slopes around him. He can see faces in the haze, the pale faces of dead people. Wind sighs whispered words.

_'You're hers, you're hers, you'll always be hers._'

**oooOooo**

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_**A/N: **The title of this chapter as well as many phrases in this chapter refer to Keats' poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci".  
_


	7. That's All

**That's All**

When Hermione looks up to see a very much alive and rejuvenated Albus Dumbledore, surrounded by four men and one woman (all of whom ought to be dead) she knows it's another dream, and that it doesn't belong to her.

Thinking of how the last one played out, she's less than thrilled.

She glares at the red-head with her sparkling eyes and animated gestures. Hermione's jealous, and she doesn't like that.

Then Lily takes James' hand.

Apparently an _instinctive_ reaction. A completely _casual_ gesture. But Hermione notices a calculating gleam in Lily's eyes. James' proud, possessive air when he returns Lily's squeeze is all natural, however.

Hermione turns. She doesn't know why. In this dream, there's no sound. She decides to be grateful for small mercies.

It's Snape, of course.

_I must be sharing his dreams,_ Hermione thinks. _How odd._

Again she feels compelled to follow him.

And again they are at Hogwarts. A silent, empty Hogwarts; in the corridor outside the Room of Requirement. An Order meeting during the holidays, she supposes.

Snape paces, shoulders tense, head bowed, fists white-knuckled. He looks a man possessed by madness.

Hermione knows this madness has a name.

Suddenly he looks up, and Hermione must endure how this private man loses control over his expression. She sees his struggle, sees his defeat. Desire and pain strip him of all defences, leave him naked and exposed, the tower of his soul tumbled down, ground to rubble under a dainty heel.

He stares to her left. Lily stands with her hand curled around the door handle, leaning against the heavy wood. As if she needs the support.

_Or to keep a silencing spell in place,_ Hermione considers cynically.

Hermione winces at Snape's painful attempts to speak. He swallows dryly. Fear and pure panic cloud his gaze.

At last he manages to say something, and although she still can't hear a word, Hermione's imagination readily supplies the dialogue for the scene playing out before her.

'I thought it was the best day of my life when I met you. Now I think it may have been the worSt My feelings for you haven't changed a whit in all these years. You know that! But you don't care. I've done everything you ever wanted.' A sneer contorts his face as he raises a hand, one finger at a time, counting off -

'I've given you my body. To your scheme I've submitted my free will, my honour and my freedom.

'I've given you _my heart!'_

He clutches his left fist to his chest.

Lily frowns and rubs her forehead as if she's getting a migraine. Hermione can see that she's struggling for control now, too. Her lips twitch a little, her nostrils flare slightly, and she blinks as if she wants to roll her eyes.

When she opens her mouth, Hermione doesn't need to hear anything to know that Lily is speaking in that overly slow, infuriatingly calm manner that makes you want to hit a person just because.

'Sev. I'm sorry. But you are never _here. _And when you're here, you're, well, _boring._ And always so bleak.' A sigh. 'Look, if you're not blind like the mole you've become, you _must_ have realised that I've had _uh... feelings_ for James for a while. — Oh, please. Don't _look_ at me like that! You're acting as if I'm the only woman in the world!' She shakes her head. 'Sometimes I get the feeling you _want_ to be unhappy.'

He bows his head, lank strands of oily hair hiding his face. But Hermione feels his answer nevertheless.

'Yes, I must truly wish to live in misery, to give my heart to someone who'd keep such a loose hold on it. Someone who would crush me with a glance as if I were nothing but a puerile imbecile. I must look right pathetic to you.'

Lily's expression softens. She steps toward him, laying a gentle hand upon his arm. 'No, you don't. Will you never stop this foolishness? I feel no disdain for you. I never have, and never will. I _do_ love you — I'll never hate you. I just don't love you in an intimate way. Not anymore. _That's all.'_

**oooOooo**

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_**A/N:**_

_All textual allusions to 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by Alain Chartier in the title and text of this chapter are absolutely intentional._

_"the tower of his soul tumbled down" – Textual allusion to Diana Gabaldon, "Cross Stitch", Chapter 36._


	8. Oh, What Can Ail Thee?

**Oh, What Can Ail Thee?**

Harry jerked and blinked. He couldn't remember when he'd stopped reading. But now he was just staring blindly at the pages of the fat tome on wizarding criminal law on the table before him.

_'Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, da...' _

'I know, Harry. I know.' Ginny's voice was weary.

Luna didn't say anything, not even something strange, and _that _was certainly not a good sign. Neville just kept reading. Stolid. Stoic. He who'd suffered most under the Potions master in class was now the most determined to save Snape. Ron, however, was still refusing to help -though he claimed that he of course didn't believe what the papers wrote about Snape and Hermione.

Harry looked at the clock and jumped up. 'FUCK! I'm going to be late.'

He had requested to be present at the hearings for the investigations of Hermione's case. Today it was medical experts at St Mungo's.

Harry raced down the stairs, taking the last flight at a jump — only catching himself at the very last moment with a Cushioning Charm. Outside, an Auror was already waiting to escort him to the hospital.

'Hello, Parker,' he greeted the thin man with the walrus moustache.

Parker nodded mournfully. 'They are still here, your fans.'`

Harry didn't spare a glance for the girls camping among the flower beds at the centre of Grimmauld Place. He disliked the never-ending hubbub about Hero-Harry and the Boy-Who-Lived-Thrice. But what he disliked even more was that in spite of vanquishing Voldemort, he still didn't pack enough punch to put a stop to the investigations against Hermione, or to the proceedings against Snape.

Snape's trial was already scheduled.

And Hermione's ...

Harry clenched his teeth. He tried to concentrate on the four Ds and on St Mungo's. It didn't work. Too many thoughts running around in his head, spinning and turning in crazy circles like a broken carousel.

'Sorry, Parker. I need a moment.'

He started pacing. _It simply isn't fair, _he thought. Though he could just imagine what they'd have to say about that ... He could hear their voices in his mind.

_'And when has life ever been _"fair",_ Potter?' the cynical potions master would sneer._

_'I don't think life works that way, Harry,' Hermione would chide him, her eyes wide and scared._

Snape and Hermione were still out of it, kept magically asleep so their bodies might heal from Nagini's venom. And a tiny voice at the back of Harry's mind insisted that it was better this way. _Easier. _

There were too many things he didn't want to tell them.

He didn't want to tell Hermione that her parents were dead. He didn't want to tell her that she was being prosecuted for reckless manslaughter.

And he could just imagine how Snape would react to the news that his memories had been seized as evidence for his upcoming trial.

The Ministry was out to get them. And the new Minister of Magic was determined to make an example of them. From the folds of the front-page in Parker's pocket, Fudge leered unctuously at Harry: 'This a new era — the rule of law instead of that of a Dark Lord. Nobody and no one must be above the law.'

_Percy_ approved.

Hell, theoretically Harry supported the concept himself! Just not in this particular case. Not when it meant sending the man who'd saved his life and his best friend to Azkaban.

'You'll be late,' Parker pointed out, his tone melancholy.

'Then they'll have to wait,' Harry snapped. He might not have the clout to keep the Ministry from wreaking havoc in the lives of two damn heroes of the damn war. But at least he was important enough that they wouldn't start that damn hearing without him.

He sighed. He hadn't meant to take out his frustration on the Auror. 'Sorry, Parker.'

'Bad day, sir?'

'Just the latest in a long row of bad days,' he muttered, then pulled himself together. Voldemort was dead, after all. And Snape and Hermione were alive. Where there's life, there's hope. Had Hermione told him that? It sounded like her.

Another deep breath. Harry concentrated carefully on the four Ds, and on an elegant, soft, pop of Apparition.

He appeared in front of St Mungo's with a CRACK! Harry shrugged. At least he hadn't Splinched.

Five minutes later, Harry discovered in a cramped office on the Janus Thickey Ward that he was indeed at least important enough for St Mungo's experts and Ministry investigators to wait for him.

Sadly, that didn't help.

The Healer patiently explained which spells Hermione had used on her parents, and the mistake she made. A mistake, he said, that was as easy to make as it was to avoid.

'But Hermione never makes mistakes!' Harry protested.

Dolores Umbridge smirked.

**oooOooo**

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_**A/N:** All textual allusions to 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by Alain Chartier and by John Keats are entirely intentional._


	9. Alone and Palely Loitering

**Alone and Palely Loitering **

When she wakes, it's morning. So early that the walls of her tiny room are tinged with indigo.

Waking is a shock — because it's so easy. She simply opens her eyes. To white walls and blue shadows. A Silencing spell keeps the room unnaturally quiet. Her breathing is noisy, she sounds like a hippopotamus. But she doesn't mind. She's content to lie on her back, to watch the shadows melt away, to listen to her breathing.

And to remember.

Her memories of the twelve months before May 1, 1998 are jumbled. Long, hazy stretches of black-and-white boredom, punctuated by flashes of pure panic. Brilliant splashes of red, her heart pounding, her stomach somersaulting at the soft silk of Snape's voice calling her through Phineas Nigellus' portrait.

_'The sword — you need the sword. I'll send my Patronus. Look for a doe ...'_

_'A doe? But wasn't J- err, what I wanted to say: you mustn't let Ginny lose her temper. Send her to Hagrid. He'll know what to do with her.'_

_'That is a sensible strategy. And you — you need to —'_

_'Yes?'_

_'Just — take care of yourself, Miss Granger. I — those two — we — just try to put that magnificent mind of yours to the task of exercising some basic survival skills.'_

Abruptly she wonders if he dreamed of her, too.

But why would he? And if she truly shared his dreams, then she knows what — and whom — he dreamed of.

She decides that she must see him. Now.

Her knees are weak, her steps unsteady. _How long have I been asleep?_ She totters to the mirror over the washing basin in the corner. The woman inside the looking-glass is pale and haggard.

But the mirror tut-tuts encouragingly, 'Finally done with all that lazy loitering, my dear? Tsk, tsk, white as a lily you look! Though I must say that woebegone wight in the other room doesn't precisely sport roses in his cheeks, either. Though,' the mirror sniffs, 'he's started snoring. The Healer insists that's a good sign.'

She stumbles from the room. When she reaches his bed, she collapses. Just her muscles, weak after weeks of enchanted slumber. Mostly it's relief. That he's alive. Snoring. Still dreaming of damn Lily Potter.

**oooOooo**

She is not allowed to see him again.

Once the status of her physical and mental health has been assessed, she is remanded into custody while awaiting trial. That means she stays in the tiny white room with the chatty mirror. A watch-wizard is positioned in front of her door. Security spells are added to the window. The room itself is infused with Anti-Apparition wards.

Howlers or cursed objects end up in her room nevertheless. One day, her tea, once poured, sucks all the oxygen from the room. Hermione and the alerted watch-wizard nearly die.

But Hermione doesn't care.

She only knows that she has tried to save her parents — but that she has killed them instead.

She refuses to see anyone, but discovers this won't keep Harry or his lawyers away. At least she can choose not to read the letters. From Ginny, Neville, Luna, George, Bill. Even from Molly and Arthur. She is mortified to receive a sombre scroll from Professor McGonagall.

From Ron, nothing.

Suddenly it's a humid morning in AuguSt The day of her trial. Ginny Potter arrives, armed with new robes and a dozen shampoos and conditioners. By that time, Hermione Granger has turned meek.

At the Wizengamot, she listens attentively.

She is charged with reckless manslaughter. The volleys between the counsels for the defence and the prosecution remind her of a tennis match.

That she was a minor in the Muggle world is a mitigating circumstance.  
That she was of age in the wizarding world is not.  
That her OWLs have been the best of her year is not counted against her.  
That she hasn't sat her NEWTs yet is taken into consideration.  
That there was a war going on is rejected — no war was ever declared.  
That she wasn't a soldier would only have held her accountable like any other civilian.  
That she only wanted to save her parents mitigates her liability.  
That she used a Dark Arts spell as illegal as they come increases her culpability.

Eventually she stops listening. Only when Snape takes the stand, she looks up again. All of a sudden, her heart is pounding. _He's alive. _

For a moment, they stare at each other.

Then Snape looks away.

'She did the best she could, under the circumstances,' Snape says at last.

'It was not enough,' declares Umbridge.

**oooOooo**

Snape's trial forces Hermione to rouse herself from depression. She even agrees to see Harry to discuss the case.

But when she takes the stand and Umbridge reads aloud the long catalogue of Snape's crimes, the spirited defence of Severus' actions that Hermione has prepared withers on her lips. She stammers how he helped them on their Horcrux hunt. How his wand was forced by the Unbreakable Vow. How he, too, was just a soldier in the war.

But she remembers that, according to the Wizengamot, without a formal declaration of war, there is no war.

And assisted suicide is as illegal in the wizarding world as among Muggles.

When Hermione swears that nothing improper ever happened between her and the potions master, or later, the headmaster, no one in the court room seems to be listening to her anymore.

**oooOooo**

* * *

_**A/N:** All textual allusions to 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by Alain Chartier and by John Keats are entirely intentional._


	10. No Mercy

**No Mercy **

Outside the door, Hermione leans against the wall. Her heart is pounding, her temples throbbing. Harry and Ginny stare at her with that strange, composed, observant expression she doesn't remember from Hogwarts. Harry flicks up a Muffliato around them. 'So you lied after all?' he asks her. Instead of blowing a gasket, he just looks at her with quiet sympathy and waits for her answer.

Hermione shakes her head. Her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

Ginny answers for her. 'No,' she says. 'Nothing happened between them. This is just a crush.' Ginny laughs, obviously relieved. 'And Ron's just being a jerk. You know that.'

Hermione does, too — that it's just a crush, and that Ron's a jerk. But that is all she has left.

Harry is still looking at her expectantly.

She shakes her head again. 'I did not kiss the man, Harry. Only the —'_ In for a penny, in for a pound, _she thinks. And she used to be a Gryffindor, after all. For a fleeting moment she wonders if there will be Houses in Azkaban. _Sorting shackles, maybe?_ '— only the hero.'

For everything he taught us. For everything he said to cheer me up and to help me during the last year, even though he didn't like me one little bit. For the good things, and the bad.  
Hermione knows she can count herself lucky his constitution is still so poor. Had he woken, he'd have hexed her into oblivion and saved the Aurors the task of transferring her to Azkaban.

Strangely, Harry appears to understand. Rubbing his scar, he turns away brusquely, but not before she glimpses the glittering of tears in his eyes.

'I've been reading,' Harry announces suddenly.

Before, she might have teased him, clinging to glib, bossy comments, so she wouldn't have to admit to her insecurities and fears. But that part of her has died. Not with her parents; she didn't even know about their deaths until it was all over. Maybe when she enjoyed Lucius Malfoy's tender care.

So she just nods and waits.

_'When a man is truly full of pain, his words are proven by his deeds.'_

**oooOooo**

Harry and Ginny accompany Hermione to her room.

Tomorrow the Wizengamot will announce hers and Snape's sentence.

She curls up on her bed. She's thinking of what Harry said. Of her parents. Of what her dreams used to be. She'd like to cry, but she can't.

Eventually, she falls asleep.

**oooOooo**

'Not Azkaban?' she whispers. Her voice comes from far away._ But the spell I used destroyed the brains of my parents and killed them. _She ought to be sent to Azkaban. And Snape — Snape —

No Order of Merlin for him, but neither a life-sentence in Azkaban.

'Not Azkaban?' Hermione repeats. Ginny takes her hands. Luna embraces her. And Hermione's shaking like a leaf.

'No Azkaban,' Ginny reassures her.

'You're safe now,' Neville promises.

But Harry curses: 'Breaking your wands? Seven years of exile? Fuck them all! I only agreed to that bloody plea bargaining because they promised this wouldn't happen.'

Snape sits in his chair and looks as dazed as Hermione feels.

**oooOooo**

'Hermione, you can't do that!' Harry protests. 'He's, he's not some stray house-elf you can take in just like that!'

After the trial, the lawyers have taken over once more, explaining the details of the sentence to their clients. By now Hermione knows exactly what she has to expect, what she can, what cannot do.

The Minister of Magic himself will break their wands.

(Theoretically, their wands could be confiscated and returned to them in seven years. But usually exiled witches and wizards do not survive that long. And if they do, their magic changes so much that their old wands no longer respond to their touch. Besides, breaking wands makes for better pictures on front-pages.)

Then watch-wizards will lead them to the visitors' entrance and escort them to Muggle London.

_That's it._

Hermione almost chokes. _I didn't want it. At all. But I did kill my parents._ That's_ it. _

Sometimes she wakes in the middle of the night. Guilt twists her stomach until she vomits blood. But during the day, her mind has started taking over again, calculating and courageous.

Now she looks at Harry and smiles. 'Just watch me.'

**oooOooo**

For weeks she's been thinking about her wand. She hasn't held it since that day in the Shrieking Shack. She'll only hold it once more, for the Eviction Ceremony.

She doesn't know how she feels about it. This _is _the weapon that killed her parents. And the tool that saved Severus Snape. Most of all, it is a part of her. Like a hand or a foot. She is a witch after all.

Hermione is not ready for today.

She feels sick.

Ginny has packed her suitcase. Dudley Dursley of all people will be waiting for her on the other side. How that's possible, she still doesn't understand. But she does realise Harry has truly pulled all the strings for her and Snape that he could reach, with toes or teeth.

Two watch-wizards Apparate her to the Ministry, one on her left, the other on her right.

She's a criminal, after all. And a hero.

And a girl crying for her mother at night.

**oooOooo**

The wand breaking is over quickly.

If it hadn't been her and Severus' wands, she'd have laughed when the Minister for Magic is incapable of performing — the wands prove too hard for his pudgy hands. Kingsley Shacklebolt as the new Head of the Aurors Office ends up having to break them instead. He looks as if he's being forced not only to break them, but eat them — thoroughly disgusted.

Then the watch-wizards herd her and Snape into the narrow visitors' elevator.

Suddenly Hermione stands pressed against Snape in the miniscule phone box elevator, and all she knows is that she's not a witch anymore.

The beautiful dream that began with her Hogwarts letter has turned into a nightmare.

And now it is over.

**oooOooo**

* * *

_**A/N:** _

_'I did not kiss the man, Harry. Only the –' ... '– only the hero.' – reference to chapter one and the anecdote involving Anne of Brittany._

_'When a man is truly full of pain, his words are proven by his deeds.' __– quoted from 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by Alain Chartier._


	11. You Reap What You Sow

**oooOooo**

**ooo  
**

**Act 2:**

**"La Belle Sorcière Avec Merci"  
**

**ooo  
**

**oooOooo**

* * *

**oooOooo**

**You Reap What You Sow**

In the narrow confines of the phone-box elevator, Severus held Hermione simply because there was not enough space _not _to hold her.

With a nasty crunch, the telephone box arrived at its destination. The door jerked open, and he could have sworn that the floor tilted, heaving them convulsively onto the dirty pavement of Muggle London.

'You have been exiled from the wizarding world for a period of exactly seven years,' a tinny voice blared from a dirty black speaker.'Or, in other words, for a period of 91.3106279 months or 365.2425116 weeks or 2556.6975810 days or 61360.7419444 hours or 3681644.5166667 minutes or …'

Severus slammed the door shut before the voice could get started on the seconds.

Outside it was raining, of course, never mind that it was August, and the middle of summer.

For a long moment Severus stood in the pouring rain and just stared at Hermione. She was transforming into a drenched poodle right in front of him, her curls sticking miserably to her head. She stared right back, eyes wide, shocked, and very brown. Shadows moved within them, making him realise that Legilimency was a kind of magic no one could ever take away from him. Without thinking, he bent down, his gaze locked with hers.

For a split second, he saw her standing in front of an old carousel on an abandoned playground. But before he could process the impression, she blinked, and time started again.

Someone behind him cleared his throat. 'Ahh, Prof– Mr. Snape?'

Severus whirled around, fingers snatching, but touching just an empty sleeve. He had to exert all of his self-control not to ball his hands into fists.

A fat young Muggle — no, he thought, and something twisted sickly inside his stomach. _Not a Muggle. That is not an applicable category anymore. _

A fat young _man _stood before him_._ Solemn, slightly stupid expression fixed between a wobbly chin and watery blue eyes, crowned with a mop of curly blond hair. And although visibly nervous now, a man used to violence. Severus narrowed his eyes. But the stranger had taken a step backwards. Keeping his hands down and at his sides, he presented his empty palms. Though scared and in the defensive, the man's stance was solid. For some reason he reminded Severus of Harry.

'My name is Dudley Dursley,' the man said, as he warily extended his hand. 'I promised Harry to come and collect you — if, if it came to — well, and it has, and so I'm here. _Uh._ Hi. And _err…_ you must be Hermione.'

_That was Tuney's boy?_ Severus caught himself just before he could shake his head. Dudley was at least twice as wide as Potter. _Potter._ Bile rose in his throat. _What in Merlin's name did the prat think, sicking Tuney's whelp on him?_ _Did Potter think that he needed his pity?_ Severus swallowed hard, as his mind mercilessly supplied a succinct assessment of the situation. What Potter thought was very simple: that both Severus and Hermione would need all the help they could get, thrown out of the wizarding world without a knut to their name and no more than the robes on their backs — _damn,_ they'd have to get rid of the robes as soon as possible, or they'd arouse attention they could ill-afford. And _fuck,_ where did this 'they' come from? There was _no _'they'!

With a taste in his mouth that was bitter like armadillo bile, Severus shook Dudley's hand. 'How do you do.'

He turned to give Hermione room to greet Dudley as well, but she just stared at the man with wild eyes. Severus wondered if she was in shock. She was shivering slightly, and white as a sheet. _Fuck. I should just leave both of them standing here, gawping at each other in the rain._

_And then what? _a nasty little voice inside his mind asked. _As if you have so many good friends in the M_—_ in this world that it would be just piece of piss for you to find a place to hole up while you figure out what to do next._

'You reap what you sow,' Severus muttered.

He put his arm around Hermione's shoulder and drew her against him. She was indeed trembling. Shaking like a leaf, in fact. _Oh, damn._

Dudley's soft look said more than words. Thankfully, the traffic noise covered the sound of Severus' grinding his teeth.

When they reached Dudley's car, Severus' snort roused Hermione enough to make her stammer, 'What — what a pretty car you've got there, D- d- dudd- Dudley.'

It was a baby-blue Aston Mini.

Somehow they squeezed inside. Huddled against Severus, Hermione mumbled, 'That's what gave me the idea for my bag, actually — tiny cars and drawers. They can hold so much more than it looks like from the outside. Especially drawers. _Muggle ones._ Boxes not even as big as a square foot, and they still can eat your socks.'

Severus remembered the beaded bag she'd created for that ill-conceived camping trip with Potter and Weasley. Quite an ingenious bit of spellwork — he had to grant her that. And like her silly bag, the girl held more than it appeared from the outside. He grimaced. _So much promise._ All of it wasted, now.

'However shall I cope now, with just an ordinary Muggle handbag, I wonder?' Hermione went on. 'Though my mother always seemed to fit everything into her handbag, including the kitchen sink.' She giggled shrilly.

Severus frowned. She was babbling. Definitely shock, then.

Suddenly the car lurched to a halt. Severus jerked. Worrying about Hermione had at least kept his mind off their method of travelling. Now he gulped at the red lights looming in the twilight above them. The irony didn't escape him: he who'd never trusted anyone since Lily's betrayal was forced to trust a tin on wheels and a pudgy Muggle with his life.

_And Hermione's._ He tightened his hold on her. _At least they'd have been _Apparated_ to Azkaban …_

**oooOooo**

* * *

** Please feel free to leave a comment!** What made you smile? What made you frown? Wonder, cry? What's the most memorable line?

Let me know! And if you have nothing to say about my story, maybe leave a comment for another author's story elsewhere? Comments are the only remuneration that fanfic writers receive and all of us cherish them.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy my story.


	12. La Championne du Chevalier

**La Championne du Chevalier**

Hermione's steps echo in the empty hallway. She imagines her mother's purple Persian rug on the gleaming white tiles and shudders.

Dudley hovers on the doorstep. Snape stares at her. She can see how Snape is trying to reconcile this posh minimalist mansion with the bookworm in robes he knows from Hogwarts.

'I thought your parents were dentists?'

'Sort of.'

He raises an eyebrow. 'Miss Granger, you had better explain yourself. _Now._'

She winces. She hates it when he calls her 'Miss Granger' like that, but she doesn't protest. Everything's surreal. She's feeling so strange, as if she's floating, or cocooned in cotton wool.

'Come in, Dudley,' she says.

Dudley closes the door behind him. 'Harry asked me to get some stuff from IKEA. Just so you'd have, you know, a bed and a table and so on. I didn't know, like, what you like, so I got just some really basic stuff …' He trails off, looking from Hermione to Snape and back. 'I … I'll just go make some tea. _Uh…_ You go ahead.' He gestures vaguely in the direction of the living room and disappears into the kitchen, shutting the door, leaving them alone in that white echoing hallway.

Hermione feels exposed as if she's naked on stage, and she doesn't know her part.

Snape is waiting.

'Well, they were. Dentists,' Hermione explains, studying the spotless tiles at her feet. 'Only da- my father was a specialist, an oral surgeon with international clients. And —

'— my mother was Lady Jean Grenville, daughter of Viscount Greenmere,' she whispers. 'She did lots of charity work. British Dentists for Africa, that sort of thing.'

'Miss Granger,' Snape says very softly, his most dangerous voice, and she feels like a mouse before the cat pounces, 'do I look like a charity case?'

The door of the kitchen opens and Dudley reappears, a tray in his hands.

'Tea's ready,' he announces brightly.

Apart from a small square table, four chairs, and a Japanese paper lamp, the living room is empty. Hermione slumps down on 'her' chair, the one closest to the fireplace, looking toward the conservatory. She misses the splashes of colour from her father's orchids. All of a sudden her eyes are burning. Her hands, expertly handling tea pot and cups, passing sugar, milk and scones, do not seem to belong to her.

Outside the rain has stopped. The veins of the exotic hardwood floor gleam in the sudden summer sunlight flooding the room.

_It should be winter,_ Hermione thinks, as she stares into her cup. Somehow it seems wrong to be exiled in August. She realises that Snape is waiting for an explanation, a justification, a vindication — an answer. But she doesn't have one.

'It was Harry's idea,' Dudley says quietly. 'So don't blame Hermione, Mr. Snape.'

Snape opens his mouth in a snarl, baring crooked yellow teeth. But Dudley holds up a hand. 'Please, let me say something first.'

Snape frowns even more fiercely but closes his mouth, pressing thin lips into an even thinner line of disapproval. Dudley looks questioningly at Hermione. She wonders what happened to the big bad bully Harry used to tell her about. But she nods. Looking down at her cup, she thinks it strange that there should be tea in her exile. Or furniture from IKEA, for that matter. Or the comfort of the bleak-eyed, black-robed man on the other side of the table, with his familiar scowl.

'It's no good to throw around blame,' Dudley announces. 'That doesn't help, see. I used to do that all the time. Blame Harry, that is. For like, my bad grades and everything else. Lots of kids do stuff like that. Cause it's easy. Easier than looking at yourself. But sometimes, something comes up, and that doesn't work anymore. When the D-'

He swallows, his double-chin wobbling pathetically. 'When the Dementoids attacked us —'

He gulps his tea. 'Those things, they, like, sucked all the fight out of me. T'was awful. Like, one day I woke up, and I'd no friends. Everyone was laughing at me, all the time. And when I hit them, they hit back! A nightmare. Smeltings' principal said I had to get help. So Mum made me do therapy. And it helped. Loads.

'Now I'm assistant counsellor at a comprehensive in Lewisham,' he continues, 'and my father doesn't talk to me, 'cause counselling is such a shitload of namby-pamby. — What I'm saying is, today, that must be like Dementoids for you. A —' He hesitates, concentrating. 'A "traumatic" experience. So there. Admitting you need help doesn't turn you into charity cases or anything. It just means you need help. _I_ did.'

Expectantly, he looks at Snape and Hermione.

She can see that Snape wants to leave. He'd probably rather be in Azkaban than here. She tries to suppress her panic. She knows Dudley is right: Snape _will_ need help. He hasn't lived in the Muggle world since he was a boy. Even then his mother was a witch. But what's more, Snape is everything that is left of her world. She doesn't want to lose him, too.

The silence stretches, invisible ropes coil and tighten around them. Hermione feels strangled, short of breath. She has to concentrate so she doesn't start hyperventilating.

When she's close to tears, Snape leans back and inclines his head a fraction.

_He'll stay._

At least for now.

**oooOooo**

* * *

_**A/N:** "La Championne du Chevalier"—__ Textual allusion to the poem championing the poor knight in Alain Chartier's LBDSM._


	13. The Punch of Death

**The Punch of Death**

'And what, Mr Dursley, will Mr Potter's help look like?' Severus sneers, ignoring Hermione's palpable relief.

He knows he should leave. He should get up, walk down that wide, white hallway, out the door, around the corner, down the road towards Regent's Park, and never look back. He's certain of this. He can never belong here, in this pristine, pricey house.

But when she looks at him, with her every thought, every feeling crystal clear in her big brown puppy-dog eyes, trying so hard not to blink, trying so hard not to cry, he finds that he can't.

She _sucks_ at strategy. Slytherins or Ravenclaws would start the waterworks for tactical reasons. A Hufflepuff would sob, too, because that's what Hufflepuffs under thirty do in such situations. Hermione, however, silly little — well, not so little anymore — Gryffindor she is, tries desperately to be brave, and to do the _right_ thing. Just like at his trial, when she sat and stared and stammered, about how he's a hero and how he's a good man; doing the right thing for no other reason but because _it is the right thing to do._

No matter that nobody in the wizarding world ever gave a flying fuck about doing right by her. Bitterness, astringent as Armadillo bile, rises in his throat. He's almost grateful when Dudley proceeds to elaborate on Potter's grand plan.

Potter's lawyers have secured Hermione's inheritance in the Muggle world, the house plus considerable financial assets. Spinner's End was sold. It _is _magical property — and more or less a ruin. Still, it's left him a very modest revenue, a Muggle bank account in his name, and several boxes of books in Hermione's cellar.

Dudley will help them with evening courses for Muggle degrees and Muggle jobs. The next day, he'll take them shopping.

When Potter's cousin has left, the room is suddenly too big and too empty, the house too quiet. Going to bed is awkward. A stilted 'sleep well' on the landing, then Hermione disappears in the room that once belonged to her parents, while Severus enters what was once her room. Both rooms are empty save for a futon with sheets and blankets that still smell of department store and plastic.

Muffled screams make him lunge for his wand at 3 a.m.. But his wand is gone, and his hand aches as he touches only air and knobbly futon.

When he storms into Hermione's room, heart pounding, he's met with a picture of abject misery. Curled on her side, Hermione can't stop crying. He doesn't know what to do, so he kneels down and tentatively touches her shoulder, promising it's just a bad dream.

'It's not!' she shouts at him, wild-eyed, wild-haired — and throws herself at him.

He stiffens, half-expecting Hufflepuff hysterics. But none are forthcoming. She just clings to him like a limpet.

He knows he should leave. But again, he doesn't. And again, he doesn't quite know why.

Maybe because no one has ever needed him like that before. Like a touchstone. As if he's the last safe place in a world she doesn't know anymore.

When he wakes, his left arm is numb because Hermione is lying on it, snuggled close to him. She's very warm, and her hair tickles his nose.

He knows he should move, he should disentangle himself, and leave.

_But he doesn't._

**oooOooo**

At noon, Dudley shows up, and they squeeze themselves into his tiny blue car.

Severus expects the shopping trip to amount to a torture no less painful than Cruciatus or an afternoon in Lucius Malfoy's dungeons. He has endured both — he will survive today's ordeal, too.

However, nothing has prepared him for buying jeans with Hermione.

How she flushes, flustered, when he nods his approval. How Muggle street apparel emphasizes her very feminine curves. Or how she blushes and giggles when she pronounces him to look 'hot' in a pair of tight, black jeans.

He recognises the undercurrents of despair, the harsh edge of hysterics to everything they say and do.

Both of them try not to reach for where their wands would be.

Both of them fail.

At night Severus lies awake, listening. But no sound emerges from Hermione's room.

**oooOooo**

Friday night they try out their new Muggle clothes in the pub around the corner, and get thoroughly wasted.

It's probably not surprising that they conclude the night naked, and in bed.

What _is _surprising — at least to Severus — is the fact that Hermione is still a virgin.

That the night ends with him holding back her hair, while she vomits the half-digested remains of a good dinner — including several pints of even better ale and a glass of really excellent rum punch — into the toilet, is only fitting, considering the sordid mess his life has been so far.


	14. Hospital of Love

**Hospital of Love**

'Oh, shut up, Severus!' Hermione cries. 'You're just jealous that you didn't get full marks on the test!' They share biology and chemistry classes for their A-Levels. Ever practical, Hermione's also doing Applied Business, while he's into Food Studies of all things.

Always the overachiever, Hermione's has added English literature to her course-load. And Severus — philosophy.

They're both learning Portuguese on Tuesday nights and yoga on Thursday morning. And both of them have landed a job at the pub where they got drunk that first Friday night. Hermione's working four nights out of seven serving drinks and waiting tables, while Severus helps out in the kitchen. He started out washing dishes. By now he's in charge of the chips.

It's been three months.

She doesn't regret it. Well, she does regret that she got falling-down drunk, that her memories of that night blur into a haze of headache and heaving.

Walking home, they are arguing again. Severus feels that he doesn't deserve her friendship with benefits. He's convinced that he ought to have been kicked out to live in the streets after taking advantage of her that Friday night. But it's Hermione's house and Hermione's rules and she isn't ready to admit that for her it's more than a friendship with benefits or an overly obstinate school girl's crush.

'Surely you could find another lover who'd be willing and able to grant you more than I,' he suggests. 'That Robert Pat- something. For a Muggle he's not too bad.'

'He's nice,' Hermione says. 'And I'm sure he won't mind me screaming strange words in my nightmares, twitching for my sleeve all the time, and being obsessed with invisible sticks of wood.'

They call their symptoms 'phantom-wand' and joke about it. Hermione has even researched methods of treatment for phantom-limbs — from drugs, like anti-depressants and analgesics to acupuncture, hypnosis and virtual reality therapy.

But Severus doesn't trust Muggle drugs, and in a secret corner of her mind, Hermione sees her discomfort as just punishment. Legilimency might work, but Severus respects her too much. Neither of them is willing to pretend that a wooden stick picked up in the wood is a magic wand.

**oooOooo**

They meet Dudley on a regular basis, because as Harry's relative he's allowed to send and receive owl post. It's not too bad apart from Dudley's tendency to apply his therapy lessons to everyone and everything.

When Harry comes to visit them for the first time, it's incredibly awkward, and both Hermione and Severus are relieved when he's gone.

One day Minerva McGonagall shows up on their doorstep. With her no-nonsense Scotch attitude, she's a good visitor. And she has a job for them: Hermione is commissioned for a new translation of the Tales of Beedle the Bard. Grudgingly, Severus agrees to edit Dumbledore's commentary on the tales.

Then Hermione receives a short missive from Ron — including a very sweet picture of him with Hannah holding hands and making kissy faces at each other — and suddenly all the sweet might-have-beens of her youth come to a boil.

Severus pats her back awkwardly, his words of comfort stilted and ill-received: 'Graver sickness is survived and endured than this; you won't die of such a trifle.'

'Ha!' growls Hermione, voice thick with tears and snot. 'Says the man still pining for a dead man's equally dead wife. What do _you_ know of love?'

'I know that I was condemned to love without appeal, and near drowned in the aftermath. I know enough to say with certainty that it is _not _worth it. Moreover,' he adds, 'even were I able to love again, I wouldn't _let _myself fall twice. It would be pure stupidity, now that I know the trap.'

'But it doesn't have to be like that!' Hermione argues. 'Love can be great! Look at —' She wanted to say '_my parents'._ Her throat constricts. Harry's parents? She winces. '— Molly and Arthur?'

'Really?' Severus' voice drips with sarcasm. 'The parents that produced the red-haired moron who wasn't even brave enough to show up at your trial?'

'You know what? Dudley's damn right. You totally need therapy.'

**oooOooo**

'So that's love,' Hermione mutters later into her lonely, wet pillow. 'Just great.'

**oooOooo**

**

* * *

**

**A/N:**

_"Hospital of Love" — reference to the medieval ballad of the same title_

_Robert Pat- — guess who? _

_ 'Graver sickness is survived and endured than this; you won't die of such a trifle.' — textual allusion to Alain Chartier's LBDSM._

_the translation of Beedle the Bard by Hermione is actually canon_


	15. I Love Thee True

**I Love Thee True**

Hermione falls asleep wishing very much not to wake anymore. Feverish, she tosses and turns until she drifts off into nightmare-fantasies.

She recognises the vision instantly. Bewitching as belladonna, thrilling as thornapple — and as terrible. Hogwarts, of course.

It's winter. The hills rise cold around her, the heather withered. The towers of Hogwarts loom grey above the lake. So close, yet out of reach.

Movement at the edge of the forest makes her start. A black figure emerges from the trees, glides towards her.

**oooOooo**

_Severus._

With his hair grown so long, and his black eyes blazing, he looks like a wild creature of the forest, fey.

'Come,' he says, 'come with me.'

His voice is soft as faery-song and as spell-binding as Imperius. He takes her hand and leads her off into the Forbidden Forest, to that sheltered meadow of memory, where Lily brought him once, accepted his gifts and claimed him as hers…

It makes Hermione uncomfortable to take Lily's place, even in a dream. She doesn't want to be Lily, or Lily's replacement. But if this is necessary to banish the demon of a dead woman, so be it.

Then she can't think anymore, because Severus begins to undress her, slipping down the straps of her nightie, brushing lips along her jaw, down to the hollow at her throat, to her breasts.

When she's naked, he steps back and inhales softly, his gaze intense as he studies her form. Hermione knows she's stockier than Lily was. But when Severus licks his lips and swallows hard, for once she's thankful for her curves.

Without hesitation, Severus shrugs out of his robes.

Three steps, and they stand skin to skin. Silky heat, he pulses against her stomach. Desire sizzles through her, tingles moist between her thighs.

'Come,' he repeats. Hands slide over her breasts, down her sides, circling her waist, trailing the triangle at the apex of her thighs —

He turns her around. One hand, pressed under her breasts, holds her against him, while the other plays with her, fingers tracing, dipping —

Two fingers deep inside, the pad of his thumb on that very spot, she writhes —

And feels his smirk against her throat as he withdraws his fingers, bringing them up, to smell, to taste —

'Like honey,' he whispers. 'Like dew.'

Her legs weaken and he lets her to slide to the ground, but only to cover her with his body.

He slides into her, his breath hot against her throat, and commands: 'Come! Come for me!'

She does. She convulses so violently that tears spring to her eyes, pleasure so intense it's akin to pain. He feels the same; eyes squeezed shut, moisture leaks from their corners.

Afterwards, she lies across him and kisses his tears away.

'Why do you love me?' he asks.

Her heart skips a beat, the shock an icy rush through her veins: he knows!

Everything she could say whirls and swirls through her mind. There's so much: I love you because you're wicked smart, I love you because of your dreary black humour, because of your unfailing sense of honour, because you're a right bastard sometimes, because of your strange tenderness even when I'm hanging over the toilet puking my guts out, because —

'Just because you are you, I guess.'

He stares at her as if she's spoken a language he doesn't understand. At last he mutters, 'I gave her perfume. But for you, I'd create a whole perfume shop.'

'A shop!' Hermione cries. 'That's it! We'll open a shop!'

When she wakes, she finds herself naked in bed and entwined with Severus.

**oooOooo**

**

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**

**A/N:**_ "I Love Thee True"__—__ All references to LBDSM by Keats are entirely intentional._


	16. Distilled Essence of Pleasant Thought

**Distilled Essence of Pleasant Thought**

More than two years later, Harry leans back against the counter and wipes the sweat from his forehead. Ron slides down the wall with a groan.

'And we really couldn't use magic for remodelling the house?' he whines.

'Trace,' Severus reminds him tersely, slicking strands of sweat-soaked hair back.

Dudley just gasps like a fish out of the water, his face red as a tomato.

Hermione — her hair a matted mess — is making a mental list of everything she still has to do, from cleaning the shopping windows to arranging a gazillion glasses, phials and boxes.

But all in all, 'Distilled Essence of Pleasant Thought', the new shop for homoeopathic and herbal remedies in Primrose Hill, is nearly ready for business.

**oooOooo**

Three days later, the shop sparkles. Every shelf and every drawer is stocked. All bottles and boxes, all jugs and jars, all flasks and flagons are filled: with pills, potions, powders and pastes, with solutions, spirits, syrups and salves, with tonics, treatments, tisanes and tinctures.

But Hermione's favourite is the cabinet that contains the vials with the organic perfume oils.

Just thinking of Severus' perfume oils makes her smile.

That's also the story behind the shop's name.

Severus caught her gazing at his perfume vials with a silly smile plastered on her face. He glowered at her and snarled, 'What do you think this is? Distilled Essence of Pleasant Thought?'

She'd nodded, stood up on tip-toe, and kissed his nose. 'For me it is. The perfume shop of true love and many pleasant thoughts.'

Strangely enough, when she suggested that phrase as the name for their shop, he didn't protest.

Now he steps behind her, and his hands caress her hip-bones, stroke upwards, until his fingers curl around her breasts. With a happy, weary sigh, she arches backwards. She loves to feel his heat behind her, the hardness of his body. She rubs against him a little, then turns around, her hands reaching up to his collar.

'We should christen the shop while there's time.' She gives him a wicked wink. 'This could get awkward with customers here.'

'Lecherous lynx,' he breathes, hands sneaking underneath her sweater. Then he hesitates, as if to reconsider his approach. Two kisses at the corners of her mouth are soft, not smutty. 'No,' he whispers. 'Lecherous _you_ are not. But my libidinous lioness — that you are.'

Then he draws back, halts her progress down his shirt, studies her intently, the way she leans against the counter, panting, flushed, her hands shaking with her eagerness for him.

'_Ad deam qui leatificat senectutem meam,_' he proclaims, the Latin words long and liquid like his caresses, his fingertips, as he traces the outline of her face with infinite tenderness.

'You're not that old!' she protests, but no other saucy remark will rise to her lips, to make light of this situation. She feels very near burdened with the intensity of her love for him.

'I am, too,' he insists. 'Still, I think I'd better marry you.'

**oooOooo**

**

* * *

**

**A/N:**_  
_

_'Distilled Essence of Pleasant Thought' — __Reference to the poem 'Hospital of Love'._

_'Lecherous lynx' — __Textual allusion to James Joyce's reference to LBDSM in Ulysses._

_ '__Ad deam qui leatificat senectutem meam,_' — _Ibid. (_To the Goddes who has gladdened the days of my old age.)  


_ 'She feels very near burdened with the intensity of her love for him.' —__ Textual allusion to Thomas Hardy's reference to LBDSM in 'Bright Blue Eyes'._


	17. The Necessary Cure

**The Necessary Cure**

Suddenly seven years have come and gone.

An impressive African Eagle owl — the first owl they've seen outside a zoo in ages — arrives with a scroll from the Minister for Magic.

The document proclaims their punishment duly served, and clears them to pick up new wands. They are also invited to the traditional Yule reception at the Ministry, to be decorated with Orders of Merlin, First Class, on the occasion.

'You should go,' Severus says. 'And you should go back.'

Hermione snorts and keeps Branwen from pulling a package of pills off the shelf. 'No tail pulling,' she admonishes Elyan, without even looking over to where her oldest is playing with the kittens. Like all mothers, she has developed eyes in the back of her head.

Severus insists. 'You're young, Hermione, you still have a future. I don't want you to keep you here, alone and loitering, in the Muggle world.'

'I'm hardly loitering,' she says, and that's that, as far as she is concerned.

The owl must take off without an answer.

**oooOooo**

They stay where they are, and not much changes. They take up ornithology as a hobby, turning into the resident owl specialists of the district. Their neighbours are astounded — they never knew how many owls lived in London.

The apothecary thrives. DEoPT becomes a synonym for great herbal remedies, essences, perfumes, teas and tinctures in the Muggle and the wizarding world.

At dusk, owls carry sizeable loads to the apothecaries in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. When the first order from St Mungo's arrives, Hermione and Severus go out for a celebratory dinner of Indian curry.

**oooOooo**

As the children grow, wild magic becomes a more serious issue. They talk about going to Diagon Alley to pick up new wands. But the shop is extremely busy just then, and when things quiet down, Elyan has learnt to behave, and bitty Branwen has always been the more obedient of the two children.

**oooOooo**

When they are invited to attend a parents' day at Hogwarts during Elyan's first year, Hermione is tempted. But she can see that Severus is not. Hermione declines politely, pleading prior commitments (they do have tickets for the cinema).

'Are you sure?'

Hermione smiles at her husband. 'You're my world now, and this,' she gestures at what they have built together. 'That's more than enough magic for me.'

Hermione realises that she hasn't missed her wand in years.

**oooOooo**

**

* * *

**


	18. Crying and Laughing

**Crying and Laughing**

Of course their magic doesn't go away, far from it.

Severus notices it first, naturally, but certain symptoms make Hermione pay attention very soon, too. Characteristically, it is Hermione who broaches the subject.

The discussion is painful. Hermione shouts and cries, Severus hisses and snarls.

In the end they decide on a demanding exercise regimen, and a strict diet.

For Hermione, who's never been much into sports, exercise is hard. She hates it with a vengeance, and Severus has to bully and menace her into keeping it up. Severus, on the other hand, has a hard time abstaining from Sunday roasts, chocolate, coffee, his pint of lager of an evening and the occasional whisky.

**oooOooo**

The next round of drama begins when Harry notices. Or maybe Ginny. The result is the same.

A Healer from St Mungo's shows up uninvited and won't leave until she's done a thorough check-up.

The Healer's diagnosis matches Severus' assessment.

'So magic can turn into a condition,' Hermione muses. Somehow she's not surprised. Discussing certain similarities with the Healer, Hermione suggests experiments with Muggle therapies for autoimmune diseases. The Healer shrugs helplessly.

Harry refuses to accept it was too late even before their seven years were over. He vows to move heaven and earth to find a cure.

**oooOooo**

When the Boy-Who-Lived fails to deliver a miracle for the first time in his life, Hermione remains unfazed. She shaves her head, declares it a 'look', and to Severus' horror, acquires a golden hoop for her left nostril to go with it.

That night she declaims a medieval poem: _'Make me cry or make me laugh, I am yours, whatever else I may be.'_

And Severus tells her that she is beautiful.

But Hermione is now much more disciplined about her exercise, and Severus keeps the little sins against his diet down to an absolute minimum.

**oooOooo**

**

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**

**A/N:**_'Make me cry or make me laugh, I am yours, whatever else I may be.' — quote from the medieval poem "La Belle Dame Qui Eut Merci", attributed to Oton de Grandson._


	19. Quite Merciful

**Quite Merciful**

Severus is mixing a remedy for migraines, while his son is taking inventory, one shelf, one drawer, one box, one glass, one phial after the other. Painstakingly, the Muggle way.

After working for an hour, Elyan grimaces and stretches. 'Dad, is that really necessary? I'm of age! I've passed my NEWTs. I really _can_ do magic now.'

Severus looks up and observes his son in a bemused fashion. When has he grown so tall? How is it possible that Elyan will start his apprenticeship with the St Mungo's Potions Master in September? Or, for that matter — Severus still doesn't know whether to laugh or cry or tear out his hair — since when is bitty Branwen old enough to fall in love? And with Albus Potter of all people. The Gods must be mocking him.

Raising an eyebrow, he looks down his long nose at his son, who's won the genetic lottery and escaped that feature, unlike his younger sister.

'You know what your mother said,' Severus replies.

Elyan rolls his eyes at that cheap subterfuge. 'Mother's merciless,' he complains.

But Severus shakes his head.

'On the contrary,' he says with a soft smile, 'Hermione has a good deal of mercy.'

**oooOooo**

* * *

**A/N:** _Quite Merciful — Textual allusion to "The Assistant Producer" in "Nabokov's Dozen" by Vladimir Nabokov._


	20. The Harvest’s Done

**The Harvest's Done**

Three children sat under a venerable old tree near the Hogwarts lake, enjoying the October sunshine. Two had black hair — the boy's silky-slick, the girl's rather bushy. The other girl was blond, with huge blue eyes.

'So they never returned?' Jean Longbottom asked.

Lear Snape nodded. 'They stayed Muggle. They died long before I was born. Mum says their unused magic turned against them.'

Jean shuddered. 'How awful — to live without magic.'

Minnie Scamander shook her head. 'My granny says they made their own magic.'

'Muggle magic?' Lear smiled. 'If anyone could do that, it would have been my grandparents.'

**oooOooo**

* * *

**A/N:** 'The Harvest's Done' — _Allusion to LBSM by Keats._

_

* * *

_**oooOooo**

**Finite Incantatem**

**oooOooo**

* * *

Additional Author's Notes may be found on my website: juno-magic DOT fancrone DOT net/blog/hp-short-fiction/merciless-magic-magical-mercy/merciless-magic-magical-mercy_authors-notes


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